


Live This Life of Luxury

by discord_and_rhyme



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), Well not exactly but it's a cottage in the countryside
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 07:42:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19719235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/discord_and_rhyme/pseuds/discord_and_rhyme
Summary: '...On this sunny afternoon, he's just too tired to react. Sloth, after all, is one of his favourites sins to indulge in: he delights in his afternoon nap, especially when Aziraphale can join him.'Set after the series; Crowley and Aziraphale spend a sunny afternoon in the bookshop and ponder next steps, from two points of view.





	Live This Life of Luxury

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Sunny Afternoon' by The Kinks.  
> This is a short story of two parts; the first from a familiar outsider, the second from our favourite snek.  
> It's fluff, and I hope you enjoy it. If you spot any typos, please do me a favour and tell me. Comments make my day almost as much as these two idiots do.  
> No credit to me, everything, of course, is owned by Neil Gaiman and the late great Terry Pratchett.

Matthew Johnson was eighteen years old; a perfectly ordinary student of veterinary medicine from Oxfordshire. He was currently quite cripplingly homesick. Honing his craft at Imperial College London had taken him, in his view, rather a little too far from home.  
In searching for some light and warmth in the rapidly cooling early October, he had stumbled upon a quaint little shop somewhere in Soho. The faded sign above the doorway read: _Mr A.Z. Fell, Purveyor of Books to the Gentry_.  
The place might've been a little musty, and the owner's reaction to seeing his wallet left a lot to be desired, but it was warm, welcoming, and had a large bookshelf dedicated solely to the study of animals.  
Though he had suffered a rather frosty reception, Matthew had decided that Mister Fell was a good sort after all. After learning that he was in fact rather low on funds and in no position to buy any of the books he was interested in, he'd led Matthew to the requested collection of antiquarian textbooks, humming a verse of _All Things Bright and Beautiful_.  
When Matthew had instigated a conversation by describing the tank of tropical fish he had left behind with his adoptive parents in the little village of Tadfield - "You probably haven't heard of it -" Mister Fell had positively beamed.

Despite the friendly chit-chat, Matthew still felt a little dejected, even after his host had handed him a book*1 and bustled off to the back room to make them some cocoa. Even while perusing the tome with undisguised glee, Matthew couldn't help but wish he was at home with his family - or even his tropical fish.  
_Scratch that_ , he thought, blinking away what definitely weren't tears of homesickness, and were merely a biological reaction to the dust, _You can't hug tropical fish._

As a student vet, he was a fan of all animals, but right now, he felt he could do with something more substantial than what swims around a tank.  
He wondered if Mr Fell might have some sort of shop pet - a cat, maybe. Yes, this seemed the sort of place. A large ginger cat, to chase away mice and sleep in sunny corners, the kind that sits on laps and welcomes head scratches and has a penchant for sharpening his mousing claws on leather books spines... _Ah, maybe not._

A dog, then: maybe Mr Fell had a little lap dog, to accept discreet treats of choux pastry and trot around the shop floor in a bow tie, to disturb the silence with frenzied yaps - _No, not that either._  
Matthew supposed that a real eccentric would have a parrot anyway. The kind that knows more rude words than its owner has uttered in his lifetime. And it's tough to cuddle a parrot. Matthew uttered one of those words when he realised this.

Now feeling even worse, he closed the heavy book with a cathartic sigh. Perhaps leaving his student halls at all had been a mistake. Yes, he would go back at once and call his mother, and ask her to describe in intense detail the fish tank politics he had missed in his first month away from home. He said a quiet goodbye into the hazy air, and rounded the bookshelves to leave.

Before he could, a beam of light caught his eye. He turned to nod at what he could only assume was the sunlight reflecting from Mr Fell's reading spectacles. 

_Ah - that answers that question._  
Mr Fell was sat on a window seat upholstered in burgundy velvet. Around his neck, across his chest and coiled in his lap was a long, jet black snake.  
The man had his eyes closed, delicately tracing one broad finger across the beam of sunlight that shimmered from the snake's amber eyes to the reddish curve of its tail.  
It hissed a soft hiss, and Mr Fell's eyes blinked open.  
"Ah - he murmured, a little flustered. "You're leaving, young Mr Johnson?"  
The snake, forked tongue flickering threateningly in Matthew's direction, had moved into an even tighter loop on his lap.  
"Er, yeah. I've got a lecture soon, so, er - thanks for the book."  
Fell nodded, resuming his petting of the rather imposing reptile.  
"It was a pleasure, young sir. Do come back, won't you?"  
Matthew shrugged. He was busy trying to remember if any of his professors had mentioned that snakes could preen.  
"Er, yeah, sure... Nice snake."  
Mr Fell looked almost conflicted for a split second, and then smiled brightly.  
"Thank you, dear boy. His name is Anthony."  
That prompted a flurry of frenzied hissing of which Matthew had no intention of being on the receiving end. He quickly nodded and stepped out into the cold autumn air, bell jingling in his wake.

If young Matthew Johnson*2 had waited on the pavement just a few seconds longer before calling his mother *3, he would've heard the exchange that had followed his departure.

*

Crowley morphed back into his human form with a yawn, unwilling to move from the comfort of Aziraphale's lap. His spot in the window, underneath the rays of afternoon sun, was his favourite place to bask.  
"Mmm - Angel, do you have to tell all these silly children that my name is _Anthony_ , of all things?"  
Aziraphale smiled a wan smile, and runs his hand through his demon's shoulder-length hair, messy from sleep.  
"My dear, your name _is_ Anthony. Besides, what would they think if they heard me call you _and_ my little pet serpent Crowley?"  
"I'm not your pet, Angel - and I suppose they'd just assume that you're awfully fond of me."  
"Well, the students are very clever, my dear."  
They relax back into silence, with Crowley hiding his smile against Aziraphale's heartbeat. His scales have changed to soft black silk, but the angel continues to gently stroke his back.  
"I suppose you noticed who our visitor was?"  
"How could I not? I'm surprised we never bumped into him in Tadfield, though."  
"My dear, if you never bump into anyone in Tadfield again, it will be too soon. That dent in dear Anathema's velocipede was never quite fixed, you know."  
Crowley rolls his eyes. After almost a decade of living together, he knows when his angel is trying to rile him up.  
On this sunny afternoon, he's just too tired to react. Sloth, after all, is one of his favourites sins to indulge in: he delights in his afternoon nap, especially when there's a lull in custom and Aziraphale can join him.  
But the moment is broken too soon; Aziraphale steadily standing up to go retrieve Matthew's mug and pour himself some tea alongside a black coffee for Crowley.  
He remains, stretching his long legs and letting the rays of sun dance across his face. Soon, he will put his sunglasses back on - the shop is still open - but not until he opens his eyes properly.  
Besides, Aziraphale likes him better without them.  
He wishes, for a second, that he could bare his eyes for his angel all day. The problem with the shop is that to the common or garden bookworm, it has all the allure of Eden itself.  
He ponders a place of their own, where he can go without his glasses.  
Maybe he can perform a little demonic miracle, and finally perfect Anathema's bike.  
Somewhere they can see Newt and the baby, see Adam on his breaks from his gap year...  
"Aziraphale, Angel," Crowley murmurs, as he returns with two steaming mugs and a saucer of florentines - "I wonder if Matthew isn't the only one feeling rather homesick for Tadfield."

***

*1 The book was a first edition of Charles Darwin's _On the Origin of Species_ which had tipped Mr Fell over from peculiar to eccentric in Matthew's mind. The fact that he had it filed in the fiction section even more so.  
*2 The Matthew Johnson that you may have correctly presumed to be the child that almost nineteen years ago, an angel named Aziraphale and a demon named Crowley had involved in their plan to raise the Antichrist, and subsequently avert the end of the world. This feat they had accomplished in a display of mind blowing incompetence.  
*3 Who was not the wife of an American diplomat, but the shopkeeper in a post office.


End file.
